Thursday, March 8, 2012

Indy Open: Renaissance Man (Best Overall)

The award for Best Overall (Renman) player at the First Annual Indy Open went to...Mike Kephart's Grey Knights!

Mike took Renman with this beautiful army and a 5:1 win record over both days. Good job Mike!

Here's the top ten overall scores. I don't have a list of the armies each played.

Hans Krueger, wwwwww, 77 (Awarded Best General)

Mike Kephart, wlwwww, 74 (Awarded Renman)

Joe Adams, wwlwwl, 72

Phillip French, wwllww, 71

Johnny Rockstar, wlwwlw, 69

Hulksmash, wwlwww, 68

Chad Nicholson, lwlwlw, 67

Dustin Brinson, wwwwlw, 65

Ted Crawford, lwlllw, 65

Matt Baugh, lwwwlw, 64

Interestingly, if we had allowed multiple awards per player, Hans would have won both Best General and Best Overall (He's just that good!). In fact, if we compare the top 10 Renmen with the top 10 Best Generals...

We see a lot of overlap! Six players showed up in both lists. Which means, to me, that we had a very strong showing in players that are good at both the game and hobby aspects of 40K. That's pretty special!

Also interesting was that some people thought Mike hadn't finished his Dreadknight. A few players were actually upset that he'd won with an 'unfinished' model.

Don't be silly guys! The reason the blades look like they're glowing is because the rest of the model was painted so dark. It's a deliberate color design choice. If you look in the dark areas, you'll see that there is plenty of detail. But it's subtle so that your attention isn't taken away from the pilot and the blades.

24 comments:

While the army looks nice, I'll have to say the dreadknight does look unfinished.

It's definitely 'finished' from a 3 color legality standard, but too many details aren't painted for it be really 'finished'. Darkness to promote the glow of the swords is one thing, it's another to have flat black on the majority of the armor, on the ammo feeds for the silencer (silver on other models I can see), etc., and the left shoulder piston missing.

But, it's legal, and an army's paint score is based on the sum of the parts, not one model, so I can see why he'd still get a good score.

How was paint scored at the event anyhow, and how much of a % of the overall score did it comprise? Was it all the same as NOVA's?

The exact details of all the scoring were on the Indy Open website.our appearance scoring was based on these criteria:

Appearance Scoring:

Appearance scoring will be conducted by three judges not playing in the event.

PAINTING (WORTH 32 POINTS)10 pts All of the army is PAINTED with more than 3 colors.1 pt PAINTING IS UNIFORM: Not a mix of schemes, styles, and looks. (Except where appropriate: Eldar aspects, Tyranid livery, etc.)2 pt CLEAN BASECOAT COLORS: Base colors are painted neatly.2 pt DETAILS: Details are painted such as eyes, buckles, and jewelry.3 pts CLEAN DETAILS: Details are painted well (clean, have highlights).

4 pts HAND-PAINTED DETAILS: Details (that are well executed) have been added such as unit markings, banner artwork, blood marks, dirt on cloaks, etc.1 pt DISCERNABLE HIGHLIGHTS/SHADING: Drybrushing, lining, shading, inking, etc. (not required to be clean)2 pts LAYERS OF HIGHLIGHTS: More than one layer of highlight which may include shading, highlights over inking, blending, etc.2 pts CLEAN HIGHLIGHTS: Lines are neat, drybrushing is appropriate, inking is controlled and not sloppy.3 pts BEYOND BASICS: Highlights are blended, shaded, or layered well; beyond the basic highlighting techniques of drybrushing and inking.2 pts MASTERFUL BLENDING: Highlights have been masterfully blended, shaded, or layered.

BASING (WORTH 4 POINTS)1 pt BASED/DETAILED: Bases have basing materials (flock/sand/tiles) or details painted on them.1 pt Basing is Uniform: Not a mix of styles or schemes(Unless appropriate to army)

CONVERSIONS (WORTH 4 POINTS)1 pt MINIMAL: The army has some elementary conversions (head and weapon swaps, arm rotations) or a couple interesting swaps.2 pts MINOR: Units have multi-kit conversions including head and weapon swaps. This is for more than a few models such as aunit.3 pts MAJOR: The army has some difficult conversions that use things such as putty, plastic card, drilling, sawing, minor sculpts,etc. This could also apply to the entire army having very well done multi-kit conversions (see above).4 pts EXTREME: The army has some extreme conversions which could be:a scratch built conversion or sculpt of an entire model, a large amount of models with difficult conversions (see above), or the entirearmy is extremely converted.

OTHER (WORTH 2 POINTS)1 pt DISPLAY BASE: Basic based & highlighted or detailed display base.1 pt SOMETHING SPECIAL: There is something above and beyond about a model’s painting, the display base, a conversion, or the basing (ie. movement trays are based/highlighted).

There's enough subtle detail in the 'black' areas of the model that I have never for one second questioned whether or not it was finished. I had a good look at the model from all angles when I judged it. Just because someone else painted a detail a certain color doesn't mean that it's 'wrong' on another model. In this case putting bright colors/metals in the 'black' area would have spoiled the effect he was going for. But there are subtle reds and other details that fit right in.

As for the let shoulder piston, it's clearly broken off. That pic was taken after game 6, by which time all sorts of stuff breaks. One guy's Dreadknight fell off of his carry tray before game one. It shattered into dozens of pieces that he had to have help finding. I wouldn't have penalized him one single point for something like that happening.

Obviously I would need to see it in person, but I can't imagine giving that model a particularly high score. Although the shading and highlighting on the swords is very nice, the one thing that makes me say the Dreadknight is unfinished is that the base isn't rimmed in black like the model right next to it.

Yes it is a nice looking army, but definately unfinished. The effects of his colors come off very well. Outside of the dread(which people obviously have differing opinions of) there is a majority of one unit that is also "unfinished". If you look at the dreadknight pic there is a squad in the lower left corner where you can clearly see the guy on the right is "finished", but the dude on his left is not along with a few other dudes in that squad. But given the other armies that had a 6-way tie on appearance scoring those "unfinished" models aren't so horrible. I am in no way trying to take anything away from those individuals and they all have great looking armies, just that with the specific rhuebric only 1 or 2 of them should have been that far up on scoring, definately not an average of 39/42.

My personal opinion is that there needs to be a percentage of the army noted next year that's painted to the same level for it to qualify for the higher points.

I was one of those people who was a bit miffed at their paint scores having seen the armies in person and I stand by that, especially with the photos provided and having looked really closely at the armies.

Two people with entire units that were basecoated wound up in the top 6 paint scores with one of them winning the event. It might have been 3 but I'm not sure how the last member of their group did win/loss wise. Were the rest of the models in the army amazing? Yes. But no army should score nearly perfectly that isn't finished.

And while you may make the statement that the Dreadknight is finished (which I disagree with having studied the army after the finished models caught my eye) you can't say that it's a finished army.

It's hard to tell with just the few photos, but from what I can discern is the entire army is not finished. The Dreadnight's base is not finished and is fairly easy to spot. In the DK photo, looking at the two GK at the bottom left gives me the impression they were not complete. It could be the lighting, but one backpack appears to be a 'work in progress' as opposed to the other; same with the sword.

I may be inferring parts of the painting score. I'm assuming when looking at the scoring, it is taking the entire army into account, not just select models. From experience, when you are looking for the top appearance score, one incomplete model and/or not having all the models at the same standard will take you out of the running.

Again, it may be I'm inferring information to the painting rubric (IE: entire army at a particular standard) vs select models.

I can tell there is a ton of work that has been put into this army, but I when I compare the other work shown in the photos, that the army does not appear complete.

One thing to consider is that a lot of paint scoring had to be done as the armies where getting played. It's easy to miss things in those circumstances. Especially when you have 62 armies to judge.

Another thing is that we had three different judges, and Mike got 38/40/40. Painting is a subjective score. If he was fooling people, he fooled them three times over. We mad sure to verify instances where there where discrepancies in the scoring between the judges.

The guy who did win second place did have an amazing army, and deserved his prize. Mike also had a good W/L record which is a big part of getting Ren Man.

@ScottBTW, SandWyrm did score your army the same as Mike's. You got 36/40/31.

I don't think any of the judges were fooled. I think they did what the sheet told them with rigid adherence. The sheet didn't say the whole army had to be painted to the same standard or that the whole army had to be finished.

Granted this is the only time I've run into this as I remember thinking going by that army is gonna be amazing when it's done and then automatically in my head taking them out of the running since no other event I've ever been to has given nearly full points to a not finished army.

Like I said, next year I think there should be a note at the top of the paint sheet stating that the army must be completed to same standard. Basically a standard score and points you can only go on to if the whole army is finished to the same degree.

There definitively is room for improvement. I do think we need more initial communication between the judges about what standards we should place on every category in the check list.

We need to make sure that we don't blame the players that walked away with the prizes. This was a learning experience for all those involved in running the event. While we can nit-pick this stuff, I think we where mostly accurate in how the tournament results played out.

I think we ran a balanced and fair event. I'll say it again: painting is subjective. You can't ever get it right for everyone.

Yes, we need more inter-judge communication next time. But the rubric itself had failings.

There were something like 40 possible points in the 'painting' portion, but that section topped out at 32. Just having everything painted to 3 colors got you up to 25 all by itself. So we had A LOT of players with max scores in that area, over a wide range of painting quality. As long as every model had 3 colors, it wouldn't take much to get a max paint score. There was simply no way to differentiate good from great in that area of the sheet.

For conversions, basing, and display board however, the rubric was much less forgiving. So most of the differences between armies happened there. A perfectly painted army might miss 3-5 points on conversions and display board, while a more mediocre army that also topped out it's paint score would get pushed ahead simply for having nicer bases or a display board with additional scenery on it.

There were other problems too. We had a player numbering system that was intended to reduce judge/recorder biases by not showing actual names. But it ended up causing a lot of confusion on our end. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that errors occurred with some players being assigned another's score. I know that I judged one or two players twice that day and at least one not at all. I'm REALLY sorry about that!

As for completely unfinished models, those could have slipped through because we were judging armies while the games were going. If those models weren't out on the table or in view to the side, they might not have been considered properly. On the other hand, I know that some guys put unfinished models out with their army (to complete a thematic set) without realizing they might get dinged for it. Even though those models were not in their army that day.

We judged mid-game because we were 1-judge short that day (his kid got sick) and we honestly didn't know how long it would take. Some of the paint judges also only had limited time windows they could stay for.

All I can say is that we'll learn from our mistakes and strive to do better next time. Again, I apologize if anyone felt wronged by the process. We didn't do as good a job as I know I wanted to. :(

Oh I don't blame the guy who won Ren Man. I don't actually blame anybody. I put it down to first event oopsies honestly and I'll have a full review of the event up on my blog on Monday. That said it was a solid first year event and I had a great time. But like all first year events there is room for improvement.

Yeah I know he did. I'll accept 2 of my scores, but the third score? 31? I spent the month prior fixing and painting my army to the rheubric. It was also fully painted 100%. But at least half the armies in the 6-way tie were not. 1 of the others also lacked any sort of highlighting(which is worth a total of ten points). I guess that I really feel that Kerry Collins was quarterbacking the army appearance. Ooops. It's a fumble.

I'm mean no disrespect whatsoever to the owners of these armies. They do look great, just not compared with the rheubric.

Brad had a L recorded as a W. His numeric score is correct. He should be in the middle of the 5-2 bracket, and the mistake doesn't effect who won prizes. He would not have won that bracket and he didn't get a prize for being in the 5-1 bracket.

technically, according to the maths, after 6 rounds, there should be 6 people ending with 5-1 records. The way it breaks down is as follows:6-0 : 1person5-1 : 6people4-2 : 15people3-3 : 20people2-4 : 15people1-5 : 6people0-6 : 1personI can write up something more if you need. It's an interesting statistical and combinatorial equation. in a win/loss environment where sequence of wins and losses aren't important, you end up with rounds+1 possible records. The largest number of people coalesce in the middle, forming a bell curve. The more rounds you perform, the more the bell curves.

The paint scores are what they are. Yes we will tighten up the rubric for next year.

Yes this is our first year and it will get better. Most 64 man tournaments end up with 40 to 50 in their first year. That being said I appreciate all of your feedback. I am sorry I have not been able to respond until today. New job is kicking my butt right now. I appreciate everyone who attended and look forward to planning the event again.